I Love You More
by imdex
Summary: The time had come for her to take on the fearsome dragon of old. She had left him with a note and words that stung his very soul and Ancano was certain she'd taken his heart with her.


**I know I know! Ancano is totally mushy in this story. But you know what? I'm not even a little bit sorry :) I think deep down he's just like any of the other Thalmor, deprived, internally caged, longing for some sort of kindness. I had to get this out of my head, Ancano needs more love, and luckily I'm here to give him Imani :D. Italics are past events/words, I know this story isn't perfect, but hopefully the ride off into the sunrise makes up for any dissatisfaction you might have. As for Prove it; I honestly haven't touched it :( I have a few more stories written up(Vingalmo/OC, Rulindil/OC, Estormo/OC...apparently I'm a total whore for Altmer lol) and they've taken up my time along with that life stuff. Plus this is the first time in months that I've logged onto ff so I promise I'll get around to working on that story when I can.**

* * *

The cool bite of the air brought a harsher than usual sting to his throat and lungs as he fixated his gaze on the dark stone of the ceiling. The students sharing the hall had long gone to sleep, light snores and grunts confirming that, but Ancano lay wide awake and deep in thought over a conversation he had months ago.

 _'I'm not sure when I'll be back…"she mumbled quietly as she leaned against the threshold of his room, eyes fixated on the floor, fingers flexing and balling into fists at her side. A nervous habit. He had risen from his seat and walked over to her to stop a foots breath in front of her small form. "Mutt, you sound unsure of yourself. I had thought you more of a confident Breton than this weak girl that stands before me, not that it's surprising." Her hands went limp and low but harsh chuckle met his ears._

 _"What would you do, Master Ancano, without me in your life?" he blinked and slowly his brows crept together "What makes you think my life would change if you were gone?" but his words lacked bite and she noticed with a shake of her head "You would miss me then." She stated softly and he scowled but then she lifted her head. Ancano, by some unknown force, managed to steel his arms to his sides instead of succumbing to the overwhelming urge to pull her against him and soothe her. Her tears dripped from her chin and a sad smile pulled her lips while they stared at each other in silence before she sighed and reached into her pocket. She fished out whatever it was and held her closed fist out towards him._

 _Silently the Altmer extended his palm, some apprehension apparent in his amber eyes, Imani was no stranger to pulling tricks on him every now and then. A light but concealed intake of air pulled through his lips as the warmth and softness of her fingers gently pulled away from the object in his palm but she held her hand there as she looked back up into his eyes and it was as if she were looking straight into his soul. "I'll miss you." he blinked at the sincerity of her words and the absolute heart break that tore through her cloudy green eyes. She laid her small hand flat against his and lingered for a second before she turned and walked across the hall and out the door._

His hand tightened slightly around the small parchment and an unsettling wave of nausea racked his body at the memory. Ancano had dropped the paper after the words burned into his mind and chased after her but she was gone in the blizzard. His Mutt, his Imani, was the dragonborn and it was now time for her to face her greatest task; killing the World Eater. Since living at this dreadful college he had been subject to many restless nights but since that night Ancano had had narry an hours worth of sleep at all. It was during the night, after everyone else had gone to sleep, when she would come to his room and they would talk. For hours or for minutes it mattered not, Imani was the only person that had shown him an ounce of kindness in decades, and Ancano had always looked forward to their conversations but never showed any outward appearance of enjoying her company.

Tears slowly tracked down his face and into his hair and he tried to swallow past the lump in his throat as he recalled every single thing about her that he adored and regret coursed through his heart like ice water. He had been so awful to her and had treated her no better than a torchbug beneath his feet. At first this treatment was absolutely necessary; he was a Mer of the best bloodlines and a prized Thalmor wizard. Wasting his time in the company of a human girl of sloppy forsworn, Breton, and Imperial breeding was frowned upon. But as the months carried on Ancano had become more lenient with her and because of her he had begun to question a few things about his upbringing and of his part in his organization.

He had avoided her with all he had the very moment he realized he questioned anything about his life but it only took a few days of avoiding her to make him realize how dull his life was without her company. He had been bitter to her though, his own way of showing his anger towards her, as if any of his life choices had ever been her fault.

"It was never your fault." His voice shook slightly as he whispered the words into the room, her room, as if she'd hear them. Ancano had made it routine to stay in her room after the rest of the apprentices had gone to sleep so if she came back he'd be the first to know. _"I'm not sure when I'll be back"_ a harsh sob escaped him and the mer sat in silence to make certain nobody was awake. Her voice had been so hollow as if she were already dead and it was her way of saying goodbye to him. To let him know that maybe she wasn't going to return after all. "No. M-mutt you have to come back. I demand it!" his furious whisper hissed around the empty room while more tears raced from his eyes.

 _"What would you do, Master Ancano, without me in your life?"_

Ancano had caught the double meaning of her question as soon as it was asked but had brushed it off but now it haunted him. Ancano sat up and swung heavy legs to the floor and rested his face in his palms. What **_would_** he do? Logic and fact told him that the human race was like wave tossed about the ocean, there for just a moment in time, then forever lost to the vast sea. She was human and her life would always be short while his would drag on and on for centuries. He was just beginning to enter the prime of his life, had walked the earth for 368 years, but never realized how empty his life had been. Before her. Gathering himself he answered her question quietly as he had done every night since her departure.

"I would live on for many centuries. Centuries that would take me farther away and closer to you at the same time. I'd find myself looking at the stars a bit more often and maybe constructing a snow man or two…as childish as that may be. I would never be able to shake your influence from my life and I don't have the courage to lock away the memories you've given me. You would forever take away a part of my heart if you dare leave me, Mutt, a hole in my soul that I will never be able to fill back up again. I would long to hear your voice and feel the warmth of your touch, and would dearly miss the futile attempts of you trying to leap up to kiss my cheeks…"

He stopped to pull in a shaken breath and calm himself from outright wailing before he continued.

"In the warmth of the sunlight I would take distaste for it would remind me of the name you gave me. While that name was given in sarcasm I've come to cherish it more than you could ever imagine. You've tainted me, you've forced me to question my life and my views, and you've done the one thing that's deemed worthy of my own death; you've tripped my feet out from under me, you've turned my entire world upside down or perhaps in reality right side up, Imani…"

What was he going to do? The realization made him sick and as he glanced at the small piece of paper in his palm he all but whimpered the remainder of his answer out

"I love you more."

* * *

 _She snuggled against him with a giggle as he tensed from the contact. They had snuck away from the college and were now laying on a hillside outside of the village watching the stars._

 _"Relax Sunshine, I won't bite." He scoffed "To do so would not be very wise of you, Mutt." He glanced down to find her looking up at him, that smile ever permanent in those forest eyes, a look of amusement on her face "You would never hurt me, you love me too much to do that." she teased. He prickled and his eyes narrowed but he couldn't fight away the damning blush that rushed to his cheeks._

 _"I hold no such emotions towards you." He growled. She huffed lightly and re-situated herself to look up at the night sky "Denial is unbecoming of you." He went to respond but was silenced as she pointed excitedly up to a large falling star. In the recesses of his own mind some other Ancano popped up, one that held the same childish wonder, and he found himself smiling slightly in awe of the sight. The two laid together in silence for a while between her points, gasps, and giggles as the stars came and went._

 _"Ancano…" her voice was hardly a whisper and the Altmer begrudgingly answered with a low hum "What if I did love you though?" again he went rigid "I mean…why would that be a bad thing?" He sat up and glared down at her trying to find the right words to apply the poison that had sprung up in his mind. But then that impostor in his mind, the one that he had thought long locked away, silenced him and the two stared at each other._

 _"We should go." His voice was hard. She gave him a grin "Okay." She stood and stretched and he couldn't stop his eyes from roaming over her body in appreciation. What if she did love him? A sneer pulled his lips and he stood with haste, pushing past her, but all too soon she was at his side._

 _"You should put those foolish thoughts away, Mutt." He felt her eyes on him as he continued to look straight ahead "My race is one built on prized bloodlines not emotions. I would never dare taint myself with a human." She snorted lightly "Right, I forgot, the high elves are comparable to common livestock." Imani found herself smashed against a tree trunk and with wide eyes looked up at him as he glared down at her "Watch your tongue." He hissed. She should have been threatened and something in her eyes told him she was but then that ever waiting glint of mischief took over as she spotted something within his features and with a smirk she spoke the words that would always linger in the back of his mind_

 _"Ok, the answer to I love you is I love you more."_

* * *

 _ **"If I don't return please don't ever forget me.**_

 _ **You mean the whole wide world to me and to keep you and everyone else I know and care for safe…means it's time for me to face Alduin.**_

 _ **Ancano, I meant it every time I told you that I loved you and I beg you from the very very bottom of my heart to never ever forget me. Please.**_

 _ **I love you to the stars and back, my Sunshine**_

 _ **-Forever your Mutt**_

 _ **Imani."**_

* * *

"I love you more…I love you so much more." He sobbed quietly into his palms, her note forgotten for the moment on the floor. Ancano never detected the person that slowly appeared in the archway as he continued to mumble the words between whimpers and quiet sobs. "I love you more, I really do, please…please come back."

Her own tears had long started to fall down her cheeks as she had listened to his heartache, to his answer so sincere from his soul that it hurt her own, and quietly she bent down and picked up the tiny scrap of paper from the floor and smiled "No you don't." The Altmer rushed to his feet, eyes wild as they fixated on her before taking on the appearance of seeing a ghost and seeing the most beautiful thing he'd ever laid eyes on.

"I love you so much more than you ever will." Ancano stumbled forward, eyes cautious as if he were hallucinating, but she closed the distance and with a soft tearful chuckle she wrapped her arms around his torso and cried. Ancano gave a breathy bark of laughter before wrapping her in his arms and pulling her against him almost painfully. They embraced before pulling back to look at each other, a smile gracing her lips "I missed you." He bent and for the first time in months their lips pressed together in a tender kiss. He pulled his hand from her side and gently cupped her face while her own hands traveled upward around his shoulders to brush through his hair.

Pulling back slightly his expression softened as he looked at the object that owned his heart and soul "I missed you more." He whispered gently. The smile that she gave him made his heart flutter painfully in his chest and with a giggle she pressed their lips back together with a happy hum before pulling back. "I think we should go." Ancano sighed "The Thalmor will hunt me down and kill us both." She shook her head and backed up "I disagree." She leaned around the arch and pulled back with her an Altmer that could have been his mirror image had the mer not been absolutely dead.

Ancano gaped at the sight "See, this moron was pissed that I killed Alduin and he learned the hard way that he shouldn't attack said girl that just killed said dragon. So after I thralled him I took him to Riften real quick because there's a lady that does stuff to peoples faces and ta-da!" she flung her arms out in showcase of the mer who let out a grunt at the sudden movement "Your alibi. All we have to do is put him in those gaudy robes and pull the spell out of him and then the world is ours!"

Ancano blinked. He…could be free? To live his life with her…it was everything he had longed for in her absence but there was the fear that the Thalmor would know. How could he protect her from them? Keep them both hidden? "Sunshine?" his jaw tensed and he looked at her as she approached him again "I know you're nervous…but please don't be." She held his hands in hers "I want us to be together. I mean, we're totally meant for each other" he gave a light snort and looked back up at the drooling thrall as she continued "c'mon." she gave his hands a light tug and he looked back down at her "We can be half way to anywhere before the sun comes up." She said with a smile. He bent down and kissed her again "I need to gather my belongings and you'd best make this worth my life, Mutt." And with a grin she led him from her room with the thrall grunting behind them.

* * *

"So this is how you want to die….really?" Ancano scoffed at her and pulled the hood of the expert robes around his head to combat the gusts of bitter wind. "It's fool proof." Imani's brow rose as she looked around the sight before her. It was rather easy to find a group of bandits(lucky for them they had a necromancer too!)and easier yet to get them back to the college with the help of Odahviing, who settled quietly on the upper deck waiting as they tossed and sprawled dead bodies about the courtyard. Now scene before played out in her mind, bandits raiding the college for trinkets and staffs and *the horror* some of Urag gro-Shubs books! When out of the Halls sweeps the ever vigilant Thalmor Ancano, pure blooded and superiorly bred elven rage and magical prowess packed into a glorious 6 foot something tall seething powerhouse of bad assery. But lo! The bandit leader and the familiars of the necromancer give a fierce and deadly fight! Overwhelmed Ancano delivers the killing blows of magic but his wounds are too many and his magic is depleted….

"But how did you…wind up like that?" she stammered with a point.

'Like that' referred to the thrall, who gave a moan, lying on his back peacefully with an ebony blade resting in his hands on his chest among the scattered bandits. "I'd die with honor, Mutt, now stop questioning my work!" she chuckled at the blush that had taken his cheeks as he grumbled angrily and stalked forward to move the thrall in his old Thalmor robes around to make it actually look like a major fight had happened. "There! Satisfied?" fake Ancano gave a muffled moan into the snow, now face down, with bandits on either side of him "I fell to my knees, said a prayer of victory for the Dominion" she snorted in laughter "and fell flat on your face and died. Glorious, my champion, truly glorious!" Even the dragon above hissed a noise that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle.

The Altmer glared at her bitterly as she doubled over slightly in hardly controlled laughter before she straightened "Ah, yes, this will have to do. C'mon lets make this believable." They quickly made the scene of the battle and as he sliced the bandits to bloody the area she pulled the life out of the thrall and rammed a dagger into his side after slicing him up and planting a few iron arrows into his back. "Oda, get us out of here!" the dragon dropped his head carefully while they climbed up. Once settled in on his neck the dragon glanced back "Where do you wish for me to take you, Dovahkiin?"

"Take us home." The dragon spread his wings "As you command." Imani glanced back at Ancano who unknowingly tightened his grip around her waist, his apprehension apparent all over his face "Hang on, dear Sunshine." Looking back on the events after the dead drop the dragon took from the building before arching gracefully back up into the sky Ancano was certain he'd either gone into shock or had passed out. Imani would later, and for the rest of their lives together, take perverse joy in telling him that the sound that erupted from his refined throat sounded comparable to that of a mammoth that had caught fire or a guard that had taken a literal arrow to the knee.


End file.
